Circuits and methods providing voltage adjustment as processor cores become active

Abstract

A method including receiving an indication of a number of active processing units in a computer processor; in response to receiving the indication, determining an appropriate operating voltage margin for the computer processor; reducing an operating frequency of the active processing units in response to receiving the indication; adjusting a power supply to increase or decrease a voltage to the computer processor in accordance with the appropriate operating voltage margin; and increasing the operating frequency of the active processing units in response to an acknowledgment that the power supply has been adjusted.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD[0001]This application relates to multi-core processors and, more specifically, to providing voltage adjustment as cores become active and become inactive.BACKGROUND[0002]Conventional processors may include multiple cores. For instance, a central processing unit (CPU) may include multiple ARM™ processing cores, where as a graphics processing unit (GPU) may include multiple shader cores. During operation of a multi-core processor, some cores may be active, whereas other cores may be inactive. Examples of a core being inactive include a core being clock-gated or power-collapsed or otherwise in an idle state. As load increases, the processor may increase the number of active cores, and as load decreases the processor may make some of the cores inactive.[0003]Some processing jobs may be periodic in that they tend to use a relatively large amount of power at regular time intervals. Examples include graphics processing jobs handling a sequence of frames. When a large number...

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Benefits of technology

[0007]Another example method includes determining to change a status of a first processing core from inactive to active in a computer processor having a plurality of processing cores, in response to determining to change the status, selecting an appropriate voltage margin for the computer processor corresponding to an increased number of active ones of the processin

Problems solved by technology

As load increases, the processor may increase the number of active cores, and as load decreases the processor may make some of the cores inactive.

When a large number of cores are active, it is a possibility that periodic processing by different cores may overlap, using a large amount of pow

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